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[Music plays. Auckland Council pōhutukawa logo sits in the top left of the screen.]
[Video: Footage from the top of the hill looking out over the regional park land and bay. Text on the screen reads ‘Part Magic.]
[Video: Footage of the bay, the outside of Waitawa Bach, Kate walking inside the bach and talking.]
Kate: My name is Kate van der Drift, and I am a photographic artist.
[Video: Footage of Kate picking up a camera taped to wooden stakes.]
In my work, I'm interested in land that has been impacted by industrialisation and colonisation and the weather.
[Video: Footage of Kate walking down the steps carrying the camera.]
Kate: And I'm interested in understanding the historical stories and the impact that those have had on particular environments. And Waitawa is particularly interesting because of its multilevel transformation.
[Video: Footage of Kate at the shed putting on wading trousers and taking cameras out of a bucket of water.]
Kate: Like there was mana whenua lived here, Ngāi Tai and Ngāti Pāoa, that’s evident in pā sites and middens.
[Video: Footage of the view across Waitawa Bay and the regional park land. Text on the screen reads ‘Kōherurahi Pā’ and then ‘Pāwhetau Pā.]
Kate: Then there was the colonial impact that the forest was cut down, the wetland was drained, there is pasture and it was also planted in Pinus radiata. And then after that there was industry here, there was explosives and ammunition site and then it was bought by council to be transformed into this park.
[Video: Footage of Kate walking along a track in the park carrying a camera attached to stakes, and the hillside with trees in the background.]
Kate: So in this film holder, this all gets called a dark slide, it’s a 404 X 5 camera. It's light proof, so no light can enter but water can enter, because light can't go around corners, but there's plenty of entry points and exit points for the water to go in and out of.
[Video: Footage of Kate sitting holding the camera and explaining how it works. Text on the screen reads ‘Kate van der Drift, 2024 Artist in Residence – Waitawa Regional Park.]
Kate: And I'm just taping them to these stakes so that I can put these in the wetland and not lose them and be able to come back and find them.
[Video: Footage of Kate adjusting the tape attaching it to the stakes and walking through the wetland.]
Kate: It will be a cameraless image, so the wetland will write its own image without a lens. Then I'll take this back to the studio and develop it and then we'll see what appears. It’s part magic.
[Video: Footage of Kate walking through the flax and water in the wetland, and then pushing the stake into the ground amongst the flax.]
Kate: Wetlands are incredible environments for biodiversity and a variety of species. Birds use them as stepping stones to larger areas of bush. There's freshwater fish that spawn in the waterways and they act as liver and kidney. They filter the toxins coming off the land before it goes out to sea.
[Video: Footage of the wetland, surrounding trees and Kate talking.]
Kate: And they just are incredible alive spaces that are really important to nurture and to care for and restore. Okay, so there's two in here - that's another one. They’ve been in here for a couple of weeks. And the water temperature is still quite cold. So I would think that they potentially need longer.
[Video: Footage of Kate walking through another section of the wetland and then finding two stakes she had placed on an earlier visit.]
Kate: But I might take this one back to the studio and develop it now, just to check. The stake has gone black where it's been in the water, so I'm guessing that's a high tannin content of the waterway.
[Video: Footage of Kate pulling one of the stakes out the ground and showing how the stake has turned black.]
Kate: I'll take this one back, see what's on it and hope for the best.
[Video: Footage of Kate walking to the bach, taking the camera off the stake and rinsing it in a bucket, and a series of images showing what the camera captured.]
Kate: I've made a lot of work while I've been here. And I think what really took my attention was the very physical transformation that's going on right now, which is the transformation from pasture into native planting.
[Video: Footage of Kate walking through the park carrying a bucket, collecting cuttings from plants and weeds, and tasting a harakeke (flax) flower.]
Kate: So there's been 4000 plants put outside the house, basically the bach where I'm staying. And so I've really seen over the time of visiting, I've really seen the transformation and the beginning of a new planting.
[Video: Footage of Kate walking up the hill with the bucket of cuttings, through a wooden gate and back to the bach.]
Kate: So that area of land was pasture, marginal pasture that's been retired. And it's quite incredible the amount of plants that have been put in there.
[Video: Footage of Kate walking around the bach and the trees planted on the nearby hills.]
Kate: And I guess that coupled with walking around and seeing gorse that's been sprayed and the abundance and diversity of introduced invasive plants here has just, it just really captured my attention.
[Video: Footage of Kate walking through gorse, talking inside the bach and outside with Ranger Bryan. Text on the screen reads ‘Bryan Dowdle, Park Ranger'.]
Kate: And, you know, I wondered why, because there's a lot of resource that's been going into getting rid of these weeds as well.
[Video: Footage of Kate talking to Ranger Bryan outside the bach. Text on the screen reads ‘ Bryan Dowdle, Park Ranger.]
Kate: So being here, it felt like a really good opportunity to work with the plants and the herbicides that are here. And that have a history as well that is particular and relates to the way that the land has been transformed by humans in the past.
[Video: Footage of Kate and Bryan walking down the hill and putting herbicide on the weeds.]
Kate: I've also been experimenting with collecting some of the weeds with Ranger Bryan. He's been showing me which ones he is targeting and what herbicides to use with them.
[Video: Footage of Kate and Bryan collecting weed cuttings in a bucket and talking.]
Kate: And I have been using those in a cameraless way, with a cameraless technique as well. It’s something that I haven't done before, so it's exciting for me to be experimenting with some of the herbicides directly.
[Video: Footage of Kate walking up the steps into the bach, into a makeshift dark room and showing the cans of herbicide.]
Kate: So the paper or film, they react to light or chemicals. So the chemical reactions in the wetland in the water and the microorganisms, they react in one way, but the weed works…So I’ve been dipping those plants into the herbicide that gets used with that plant and then placing that on the paper.
[Video: Footage of Kate cutting up the weeds, dipping the pieces in herbicide and placing them on paper.]
Kate: There's a chemical reaction that happens between the plant, so the chemicals in the plant and the herbicide and the paper and the sun. So those four things are all working in combination to give this quite incredible different result.
[Video: Footage showing Kate putting herbicide and cuttings on the paper, putting them outside in the sun, and recording the reaction on her mobile.]
Kate: So these are my first experiments on photosensitive paper. So you can see that the Picloram is green, it's dyed green. And then this MetGel, it turns brown. So yeah, this is just plain black and white silver gelatine paper that has then been been placed in the sun to create a lumen print which creates these pinky coloured tones.
[Video: Footage of Kate holding two herbicide cans, a series of prints on the wall and Kate explain the results from the different cans.]
Kate: But this whole project here has been fully experimental. So yeah, that's why there’s so many tests along here as well. Like I started... testing with these little scraps of old film trying black and white and colour. They didn't really work very well, but so then I went and I tried the paper.
[Video: Footage of Kate pointing to all the examples and tests taped to the wall.]
Kate: Yeah, I guess my practice is high failure and high success. So I guess if I make enough and try enough, usually something will work because I've got an understanding of how the materials interact with one another.
[Video: Footage of Kate standing at a table looking at individual results over a light box and holding some up to look with the light coming through a window.]
Kate: And I started to get some really great results on paper, these are on fibre-based paper, and then yeah, after that worked I decided to try it on film.
So I'm happy with these two and I'm happy with a couple of the film works as well.
[Video: Footage of Kate holding the cans of herbicide, explaining some larger prints taped to the wall, and a series of still shots of her work.]
Kate: It's not that I love working with the chemicals. I don't really like working with them, but the magic, the interaction is quite magical. Yeah it's surprising, definitely.
[Video: Footage of Kate talking inside, and a series of recordings of her working at a table outside on the deck. Text on the screen reads ‘Day 3, Artist residency. Followed the sun and consolidated my haphazardly taken notes (particularly scribbled in Indo.)
Kate: I think newness really does get me as well, you know, wanting to create something that's new for me or that I haven't seen made by somebody else.
[Video: Footage of a series of recordings of her residency and the different stages of her work.]
Kate: And I also had the really wonderful experience of waking up one night when it was full moon and it was just very bright here, there's not a lot of light pollution. So I just decided to get out of bed and go and take some photographs. And yeah, it was a really magical experience.
[Video: Footage of the moon shining on the water in the bay, Kate talking inside the bach.]
Kate: I spent four nights walking around the park. It’s something I've wanted to do before and here I felt quite safe because there's just no one around.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to printing some. And I think a few of them are going to be printed and put on the bunker over on the other side of the park over summertime, which will be lovely to have them at scale and be able to share them with park goers.
[Video: Footage of a series of black and white photos taken around the park at night, and some large prints attached to the bunker walls.]
Kate: I think I'm definitely not relaxed, but I just have so much fun playing and experimenting and I always really enjoy making something new or, you know, the feeling of something working is just such a high. It was a gift to be given that experience.
[Video: Footage of Kate talking inside, cleaning the waders and boots at an outside tap, and hanging them over the clothesline.
[Music playing. Three sections of the Auckland Council brand.]
[Auckland Council logo with aucklandcouncil.govt.nz.]
[Duration of video: 10 minutes, 12 seconds.]
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